Montana road trip: One family’s adventure in Big Sky Country

My husband and I are planning to drive through the state of Montana with our two kids–ages 6 and 8–this summer. We’re flying into Missoula, dipping down into the Bitterroot Valley, swooping up to Helena, spending a couple days in Bozeman and Yellowstone, and then finishing up in Billings.

We’ll spend seven nights, eight days, covering 600 miles, and along the way we hope to climb jagged mountains, plunge into cool lakes, drink a few huckleberry shakes, and take in Big Sky Country’s majestic scenery. (My 8-year-old daughter hopes that we don’t bump into any grizzly bears.)

Yes, I realize that road trips are old-fashioned and driving for hours with kids in the car gets tiring and tedious. But we’ve found that our kids learn a lot more on road trips than they ever do at an amusement park and after a day or two of the kids squabbling in the backseat our family falls into a routine and everyone starts to get along. Yes, it sounds corny, but we sing songs, look for out-of-state license plates, and count cows.

In summer’s past, we’ve driven Route 66 and the length of the Mississippi River and this year we’re looking forward to exploring Montana’s wild, untamed terrain.

Rules of the road

Before heading out, we established some guidelines:

Travel on a budget. We have $1,400 to cover the cost of lodging, food, hotel, and entertainment for 8 days; this comes to $175 a day. We’re not including the cost of driving a car or our plane flights or airport-related expenses.

Act like a local. Read local papers, listen to local radio, talk to local people.

Travel off the beaten path. Stay off the interstate whenever possible and take the scenic route.

Appreciate our surroundings. Learn all that we can about Montana by stopping at museums, reading interpretive signs, talking with experts.

Keep the kids entertained–without the help of a DVD player. Sing songs, play games, look out the window, and bond as a family. We’ve downloaded dozens of Books on Tape onto the iPhone–thanks to the San Francisco Public Library.

Stop every two hours. We’ve designed an itinerary with short driving days. Some days we’re only driving an hour. But on those longer hauls, we promise to pull over and let the kids run around.

Eat all the huckleberry shakes we possibly can. The weather is supposed to be hot and we plan to cool off with berry shakes.

Swim. Every hotel we stay at has a swimming pool, which is key when you’re traveling with kids. We also hope to splash around in a mountain lake and dip our toes in a rushing river.

Have fun. Relax. Move slowly. Stop to smell the roses.

You’re welcome to nit-pick at our budget and the way we approach our trip. I’m sure some of you would do things differently. But even better, feel free to offer up ideas for places we should visit along our route and tips on how to travel on a budget. We’ll be visiting the Bitterroot Valley, Helena, Bozeman, Yellowstone, and Billings–as well as all the little places in between–so please let us know where you like to hike and eat.

Follow the Montana road trip series here. To join conversations about the road trip, check out the Bay Area Moms Facebook page. If you want up-to-the-minute updates, follow @bayareamoms on Twitter.